2021 is a pivotal year for global action on the climate crisis. Heat waves, rising seas, and more severe storms are battering every region of the world. It is against this backdrop that the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is compiling and assessing the most recent climate change science for its next report. This report will help all of us — from policymakers to civil society to the private sector — understand how rising temperatures, extreme weather, and other impacts are fueled by climate change, and what we can still do about it.

As we approach the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), countries are expected to come forward with ambitious new climate plans to rapidly reduce global emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.

In the lead-up to this pivotal moment, the IPCC will release a new report on the state of the global climate. The IPCC’s 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C illustrated the vast difference between impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C of warming and is credited for helping to push policymakers to embrace the more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. By influencing global ambition, the 1.5°C report demonstrated the power of the IPCC to permanently shift the global climate conversation through science.

The IPCC presents the scientific foundation upon which international climate change negotiations and action are based. Ahead of one of the most anticipated report series in its history, here’s what you should know about the world’s leading authority on climate science and what to expect from its upcoming assessment.

Read the full report on the IPCC by Alix Kashdan at the United Nations Foundation.